Why did I go to College?

Mariola Says: ''The definition of education is not the definition I would use. In my opinion education is when you are able to learn from experiences and from the things you see in your life. I do not like to learn by the teacher delivering knowledge to the students. The best education is the one that you are able to debate, talk and hear the opinion of everyone around you. In the classroom the best education is the one that you can communicate and talk with the professor. The sum of all this types of education is the ones that make you learn and be able to understand everything around you." 

Why did I go to College?

Since I was a little girl, I have always been influence about going to college. My father is the President of the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico and he has always told me the importance of getting a higher education to contribute to a better society. He has taught me how my college experience is going to be and how I could use it in the future. The truth about all this is that I have never sit down and think why did I want to go to college. In my life, college was a normal thing to do and I never asked any questions about why I had to go to college. This is the first time that I am going to think about the influences and ideas of what got me to college.

My high school years were the best of my life. I was president of my class in my third year of high school, got really good grades, was in a really good school and had all my things in order to get to college. When my senior year arrived, we all had to stop for a minute and ask ourselves what did we want to do after graduation. The answer for that question was easy: I was going to college because I wanted to. In my school, the faculty and administration promoted us with the idea of going to college and we all thought that is was a pretty good one. I think that it is a good idea because that way we can learn new things, be better persons and, best of all, study what you have always wanted to be when you grow up. In high school, I loved all my science classes and my electives were all in science. That’s when I realized that I wanted to study biology to become a doctor. That senior year I applied to University of Puerto Rico where I got accepted and started in the Natural Science faculty.

When I got to college, I loved my faculty and started to get more interested in the science things. I have had the best experience with my professors. I have learned from all the points of view that there are; not always I have agreed with them but I think that that’s part of your learning experience. My parents have always encouraged me to be strong and keep going and the reality is that without them I could not make it. My field of study is really hard and sometimes you get really upset and tired because it demands a lot of work. Sometimes these kinds of things are the ones that make me wonder why did I choose to go to college. But then I realize that this hard work is going to pay later and be really rewarding.

Both of my parents have gone to college and for each one of them was a different experience. My mother got to go to Spain in her college years; there she got a really good opportunity to learn from new experiences. My father studied in the USA and he got a really different experience than my mother. These experiences that my parents had are the ones that motivated me to college. With their encouragement and the help of my high school, I got the idea of going to college. Writing this essay I realized that I went to college to learn new things, get new experiences, construct my personality and life, and meet new people who share their points of view and help me see all the different perspectives that are in our world. College is the first step you take to get a better point of view of life. These few years we spent on college are the ones that make progressive people who help evolve and make a better world. Our generation has the responsibility of making this world work and prepare it for future generations.